Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, University of Potsdam, language: English, abstract: Being located at the fringes of England, at the course of the Scottish border, the North-East is often perceived as distinct from other English regions. Thus, this region has developed its unique local identity which is essentially borne by the distinctiveness of the spoken traditional dialect - Geordie. Despite its wide regional prevalence, the dialect’s identifiability aspects are especially rooted in the urban area of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Here, influencing factors such as football, a strong communal spirit, and recent media presentations have shaped the local patriotism as well as the identification with the spoken Tyneside English. However, the intense local language identification as an authentic “Geordie from the toon” has also been accompanied by a proceeding dialect levelling in the same area. These ambiguous circumstances arouse a sociolinguistic interest in a closer examination of the development, identification and perception of the Geordie dialect. How does the dialect contribute to the local identity? And does the local dialect levelling correlate with a changed attitude towards Geordie? In order to provide a suitable approach to the raised issue, the outline of this work is structured as follows: The theoretical part will discuss i.a. a brief classification of the terminology “Geordie” (2.1), its historical background (2.2) as well as the phonological features of Tyneside English (3.1). Subsequently, the third chapter will focus on dialect levelling and diffusion in the area of Newcastle. Dominic Watt’s empirical study on FACE and GOAT vowels serves as an illustration for contact-induced levelling in the Tyneside vowel system (3.2). Hereby, further aspects such as gender and social class will extend the reflection of a “Geordie identity”. Taking these points into account, the current status of Geordie, its reputation in the United Kingdom (4.) as well as an outlook on the future of the dialect are presented towards a final conclusion (5.).

Geordie Stylizations is a short-focused research work which builds on the renovated interest on the nexus between accent-identity-prestige-prejudice, offering an analysis of celebrities' use of the Geordie variety in a series of public performances as a reflection instrument for scholars, but also for neophyte readers with an interest in Sociolinguistics, Pragmatics, Celebrity Studies, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, Sociology and Gender Studies. Of interest are the individual instances of Geordieness performed on specific occasions, i.e. the ways in which people construct their unique and constantly evolving language repertoires sometimes appropriating some, other times distancing themselves from, linguistic traits that would characterize them as members of specific communities in other people's perceptions. The material investigated is provided by the artistic world: engaging with the arts and culture, and in particular with music, is not just a solitary event, but also a participatory one which many people feel is worthwhile sharing through ordinary conversation and interaction via social networks every day.

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, University of Dortmund (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: Northern English, language: English, abstract: What is a Geordie? Where does a Geordie live? And how does a Geordie speak and write? There have been countless debates about the definition of the term ‘Geordie’. Oftentimes it has been applied to people all across the Northeast of England. In contrast to this, recent studies consider the term rather inappropriate for people living elsewhere than in Newcastle and its direct surroundings, i.e. the so-called Tyneside. Wells claims the term is to be applied to “anyone who comes from Tyneside” (Wells 1982: p. 374). However, there is hardly any evidence for either theory. The name ‘Geordie’ is obviously derived from the early 18th century, when the inhabitants of Newcastle supported the English kings George I and George II. Thus they had formed an opposition to Northumberland, where it was obligatory to support the Scottish Jacobite rebellions (cf. Smith 2007). What can be said without a doubt is that people living in Sunderland, not more than twenty miles south of Newcastle, would probably feel offended when being called a Geordie. They prefer the term ‘Mackem’ in spite of quite a number of similarities to the Geordies with regard to language. According to Andrea Simmelbauer, Tyneside English, spoken in and around Newcastle, is a dialect which is “restricted to an area which stretches some 10-12 kilometres to the north and to the south of the river Tyne”(Simmelbauer 2000: p. 27). Nonetheless, the task of a final definition of the term ‘Geordie’ remains and will probably remain unsolved. So what can this paper do? At least it can give an overview of the linguistic features which characterize the accent that is commonly used in Newcastle and its surroundings. This topic has been covered by a wide range of linguists not only in academic papers, but also in popular, commercial literature: Scott Dobson humorously made the suggestion to “Larn Yersel’ Geordie” and Dick Irwin even published a book which contains “100 Geordie Jokes.” If so, why not start off with such a joke right from the beginning. It goes as follows: A Geordie in a wheelchair visits a medical doctor. The doctor says: “You’ve made good progress and it’s time to try to walk again.” The Geordie replies: “Work? Why man, Aa cannet even waak!” The joke only works under a certain condition. The listener or reader needs to be aware of particular Geordie pronunciations which are rudimentarily reflected in the semi-phonetic spellings of the words ‘I’ as Aa, cannot as cannet and walk as waak...

This book explores twenty-first century approaches to place by bringing together a range of language variation and change research.

This volume shows the relevance of the concepts of ‘place’ and ‘belonging’ for understanding the dynamics of identification through language. It also opens up a new terrain for sociolinguistic and linguistic anthropological study, namely the margins. Rural, as well as urbanized areas that are seen as marginal or peripheral to places that are overtly recognized as mixed and hybridized have received relatively little sociolinguistic attention. Yet, people living in these supposedly less ‘spectacular’ margins are not immune to the effects of globalization and rapid technological change. They too constantly form new ensembles from linguistic and cultural resources which they invest with novel, instable, often ambiguous meanings. This volume focusses on the purportedly unspectacular in order to achieve a full understanding of the relation between language, place and belonging. The contributors to this volume, therefore, focus on language practices analyzing them as dialectically related to political-economic processes and language ideologies.

Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.

Adopting a central theme of variability, the book explores different aspects of native and non-native accents of English. The dominating perspective is that of a non-native speaker, although – as argued by some contributors – the very distinction between native and non-native English may need to be redefined. As the debate on the pronunciation of English as a lingua franca continues, this volume presents well-focused studies investigating the acquisition and use of the sound system by native and non-native speakers, problems with the choice and variability in pronunciation models and pedagogical aspects of pronunciation instruction. The issue of accents calls for a comprehensive approach; this book aims to provide such a broad perspective, based on expertise and experience of the contributors, who are specialist in linguitics, applied linguitics, phonetics, phonology and ESL. The book is divided into three parts. Part one discusses complex conditioning of production and perception of native and non-native accents. It contains acoustic and auditory studies investigating the effect of such independent variables as identity, L1 or contextual factors on the elements of the sound system. Part two links the accent variability studies to the pedagogical context by presenting problems with the pronunciation model, its choice and variability. The main focus of part three is on pronunciation teaching: papers presented in this section report on the methods and results of phonetic instruction in different settings.